SALT LAKE CITY – Utah and Nevada National Guard aviators helped airlift multiple rock-encased dinosaur fossils out of the ground in June for the Natural History Museum of Utah and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.
While pterosaurs roamed the skies millions of years ago, it was the UH-60 Black Hawk and UH-72 Lakota assigned to the 2-211th Aviation Regiment, Utah Army National Guard – along with a CH-47 Chinook powered assist from the 1-189th Aviation Regiment, Nevada National Guard – who took flight in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument earlier this month on this unique mission.
“We excavated an entire skeleton of a baby duck-billed dinosaur, an animal that probably from tip of the head to tip of the tail, was only 2 or 3 feet long,” said Randall Irmis, who holds a doctorate in integrative biology and is the curator of paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Utah. “All the bones were still in life position, so they were still connected. If you imagine all the vertebrae in the tail and the backbone, all the leg bones were still connected in life position, and that's really, really rare.”
While the animal was relatively small in stature, the fossilized remains weigh over 1,100 pounds encased in rock.
In addition to Utah Guardsmen assisting with the duck-billed skeleton, Nevada National Guard aviators assigned to 1-189 Aviation Regiment supported scientists from North Carolina using a Chinook helicopter to lift a 4,000-pound fossilized ornithomimid, a theropod dinosaur which resembled a modern-day ostrich. Each fossil will be transported to its respective museum for study and preparation before eventual public display at the Natural History Museum of Utah.
The Utah museum team has been working at this dig site since 2024. After two seasons of excavation, the duck-billed skeleton was unearthed and wrapped in a cast made of burlap and plaster to protect the fossils during aerial transport by the Utah National Guard’s 2-211th Aviation Regiment and the 19th Special Forces Group (Airborne), or SFG.
“We are really excited to work with the National Guard,” Irmis said. “Not only to have all their awesome team manpower with the riggers to get everything set, but also to take advantage of these heavy lift helicopters. We're lucky when we get to use helicopters at all, but especially to have ones that can lift such a large load is really special.”
Missions like this airlift are a part of the Innovative Readiness Training program, which provides real-world training opportunities for service members. This shows the National Guard is not only ready to answer the call in a time of emergency, but whenever public agencies reach out and need a helping hand.
“I think a big part of the National Guard is just to help out the community,” said Spc. A.J. Goncalves, a parachute rigger assigned to the 19th SFG. “Whether that's disaster relief, helping the scientific community, education, anything like that, we are more than happy to help.”
Citizen-Soldiers assisting their community is the quintessential make-up of the National Guard. For the Nevada pilot, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Scott Hermansen, who has a geology degree from Chico State University, this mission was a blend of two careers.
“This was a full circle moment given our background in geology,” he said. “Being able to offer our expertise to benefit the scientific community was phenomenal.”
The aviation assets of the Utah National Guard provide a myriad of missions for the state, including water bucket drops, wildfire suppression and search and rescue. Pilots and riggers train to respond to any call, but airlifting a 76-million-year-old specimen was a unique mission for those involved.
“Seeing a military helicopter carry a 76 million-year-old piece of history like that is really something special,” said Spc. Kartchner Perkins, a crew chief with the 2-211th Aviation Regiment. “It’s something that’ll stick with me for the rest of my life.”
This type of opportunity not only provided these Soldiers with cherished memories, but valuable training that can be applied in future missions.
“It was a really cool experience being able to work in this terrain and this environment,” Goncalves said. “It really prepares us for adaptability and flexibility when it comes to missions like this. I was super excited to be a part of it.”
The National Guard airlift is just the beginning of the journey for these fossils. Paleontologists at the museum will open the casts, meticulously remove the rock from the fossils and add adhesive to cracks or breaks. They will then be studied and preserved at the Natural History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City, where the public can participate in the prehistoric discovery.
“It's really important to preserve them for everybody because these fossils are from public lands,” Irmis said. “These are owned by all American citizens and we care for them in the public trust back at the museum and share them through exhibits and all sorts of other content that we produce.”